Tasting Note: Smoked Bourbon Peach Porter (Steak Sauce)

I brewed this porter back in June. It was a delicious smoked porter with just a slight smoky finish from the rauchmalt. I then proceeded to add a peach and some Maker's Mark bourbon for a secondary fermentation. I just kinda came up with the idea of mixing those flavors.

I opened bottle 1 last Thursday. It was very bourbon-y with some porter flavor. The smoke flavor was slight, and the peach taste was muted and mixed into the bourbon. Some of the bottle was more bourbon-y than others. It was odd, like it didn't mix well. I tasted a second bottle on Sunday. It was less bourbon-y with more of a porter/bourbon/muted peach taste with little smoke.

The underlying porter is still very tasty, but I don't think this combination is working. I don't know whether it was poor execution or I opened it too early. (I definitely intend to make another batch of the smoked porter without the bourbon or the peach, because it was delicious.) Since I don't want to drink mediocre beer, I am going to age the porter and drink one bottle every month to see if/how the flavor changes over time. Hopefully it will mellow and blend into a delicious beer. If not, no big deal because I only made 1 gallon (so I had 11 total bottles) and created a truly delicious porter.

I'll probably hold off on pictures until the next tasting. I'll get the smoked porter recipe up in the near future.